


Could've Made You Believe

by wordsareleftbehind (froggydarren)



Category: Glee RPF
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-15
Updated: 2014-02-15
Packaged: 2018-01-12 14:05:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1188012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/froggydarren/pseuds/wordsareleftbehind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is inspired by the song <a href="http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/ladyantebellum/allwedeverneed.html">All We'd Ever Need</a> by Lady Antebellum. I highly suggest listening to the song (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty487zHO9pw">YouTube</a>). I always feel like apologizing when I fall down the angst rabbit hole, so this is me saying sorry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Could've Made You Believe

He’s back from yet another event where he might have just as well been alone. He wasn’t, but it doesn’t seem to matter. The lights are low and he curls up on the couch, then pets Brian who comes to keep him company. They’re not the only ones in the house, but Chris really doesn’t want to see or talk to anyone else. Not Ashley, who’s on the other side of the room, whispering into the phone and glancing in Chris’ direction every so often with a worried expression. Not _him_ , sitting by the kitchen counter and nursing a glass of water.

“I’m gonna turn in,” Chris eventually whispers.

It’s not an invite to stay, for either of them. Chris just wants to take off the costume he’s created so painstakingly, though he’d expected to enjoy it a lot more. He wants to lock the door on his bedroom, turn the lights off, and shoo even Brian away. One more glance back towards the living room, a nod to Ashley and a half-assed apologetic look to the man who’s supposed to be his boyfriend, and then Chris is closing the door behind him, sinking into blissful silence.

“Fuck,” he whispers to himself when his eyes immediately fall on the frame next to his laptop.

It’s been months. He should’ve taken it down again, should’ve swapped it for something _less_ obvious. Something with just as many smiles but a smaller amount of dark curls and hazel eyes shining bright even from the small, shoddily printed rectangle. It’s a screenshot from a video, it’s not even a legitimate photo, but Chris can’t let it go. No one asks him about it either. Ashley, because she knows why it’s there, anyone else because they either don’t understand just how much it means or because they don’t _want to_.

There’s something not even Ashley knows, though. Chris shrugs off the costume and pulls on a T-shirt that was tossed over the back of his chair, then shudders and wraps his arms around himself when he realizes which T-shirt it is. The ‘ _I Do My Own Stunts_ ’ print is almost completely faded, the sleeves are tight around his arms. He’s been using it to sleep in every night that he spends alone. And every one of those night, he did just what he’s doing now: bends to reach underneath the bed, and pulls out a battered box that’s been scribbled all over. There are notes in purple marker all over it, practice signatures and random doodles that he remembers adding to.

Chris remembers how they used it to practice for the tissue box, when things were still okay. He remembers fighting Darren on who gets to use it, matching the smiley faces on their signatures that Chris hasn’t been able to stop adding ever since. Inside the box are scraps of paper, lyrics to songs written and unfinished, songs that he’s heard over the phone from various venues last summer, songs that he remembers listening to over a phone line riddled with static across the ocean the summer before.

He’d faltered then, when even Alla called to have him listen in on Darren’s gig. He almost tried again, but the echo of Darren’s words came back, the answers to questions that made Chris sure that he was the only one who still needed to move on.

His fingers run across the paper, flattening it out more than it already is, though it’s obvious it’s a discarded draft from the way it’s crumpled. He clearly remembers that attempt, one of the first ones at the song that still ended up breaking his heart.

_I could write of princesses and frogs_

Chris laughed, then dismissed Darren’s attempt at lyrics. “It’s too obvious,” he said then. And it would’ve been, with the way the song would’ve continued. Eventually, Darren had called him from London with the finalized recording, the one that he ended up playing on tour.

Darren thinks now that Chris has moved on. That none of the past matters much and they’re over for good. Chris, meanwhile, keeps the box and the T-shirt, the framed blurry photo of their one public kiss. And wonders if he should’ve tried more.

_But if you're happy I'll get through somehow_

_But the truth is that I've been screaming out_


End file.
